Long-time, no see, right? After several months of hiatus caused by my
university studies, I finally have enough time to pay attention to my blog too. So
let’s start with a review, shall we? Hopefully, there is still someone out
there to actually read this despite my long inactivity.
Lacuna Coil’s latest album Black Anima was released by Century Media
Records this year on October 11 as the successor of their previous album
Delirium (released in 2016). It contains 11 tracks in total, with 3 bonus
tracks on the bonus version of the album.
I
usually try not to get too excited about new albums before their actual
release, because I’d like to be spared the potential disappointment. The first
single, “Layers Of Time”, released on July 26, however, got me completely
hooked and the second single, “Reckless”, even further revved up my excitement
about the album.
I can, fortunately, say that Lacuna Coil did not let me down this time
either and their music is as dark, melancholic and full of mesmerizing
contrasts as we have come to expect over the years. Black Anima is a great
improvement over Lacuna Coil’s previous two albums, which were, in many ways, a
step forward but they also felt somewhat mundane; I personally had a hard time
finding some really outstanding songs. Just like the songs on these two
previous albums, the songs on Black Anima have a very heavy, dark sound. This
time, however, the band came up with more interesting musical ideas than
before.
Black Anima is certainly a great album – even though Lacuna Coil still
resorts to already known patterns and schemes one might be familiar with from
the band’s older albums, it also continues evolving and moving forward with
their music as all bands should, while the quality of the production, as well as
the members’ musical skills, remain great. Only in case of the eponymous song
“Black Anima”, the production could be better because the vocals are drowning
in its heavy sound. There is also nothing unfavourable to write about Cristina
Scabbia’s singing, even though in one part of the song “Now Or Never” she sounds
maybe a bit too theatrical. Other than that, her voice is a true ear candy –
especially when she’s singing in the lower registers like for example in the
part before the last chorus in “Layers Of Time” (“Through layers of time we
leave again…”). Only Andrea Ferro’s growling still has some space for
improvement and it is, indeed, getting better, which is, however, obvious since
he wouldn’t always use growling in the past. (Side note: As I am writing this review, my mother is listening to
“Sword Of Anger” in the kitchen and I am actually NOT responsible for that)
The best songs on the album that truly bring out the best of it, are
“Reckless” and “The End Is All I Can See” with “Sword Of Anger”, “Layers Of
Time” and “Now Or Never” being not too far behind. All of these songs are
catchy, but not to the point of annoyance and there is not much I could
criticize about them, even though the lyrics of “Layers Of Time” might be less
cheesy. Not to mention that these songs
(especially the first two songs I mentioned) are where Lacuna Coil’s progress
is most obvious. However, speaking about annoying catchiness, the chorus of
“Under The Surface” might be a bit too catchy and distracting, which is strange
because it definitely doesn’t come anywhere near those primitive bouncy pop
songs that are designed to become a hit and then be quickly replaced with a
different annoyingly catchy pop song. And it’s absolutely not a bad song – it’s
just the chorus that is slightly distracting.
I can’t say that the album contains any really bad songs but there are
some songs I consider kind of unnecessary or a bit boring: The songs “Anima
Nera” and “Save Me”. It’s not that they’re terrible (they’re definitely not terrible),
however “Anima Nera”, which was originally meant to be an instrumental intro,
sounds slightly bland. On the other hand, “Save Me” would be a wonderful song were
it not for the bouncy instrumental part of the track, which doesn’t really fit
the melody and the general mood of the song.
Despite these minor grievances, it’s still a great album – the best
album in years and therefore easily one of Lacuna Coil’s best albums in
general. Hopefully, the band will continue in this direction they have set with
Black Anima, because I can’t honestly get enough of songs like “Reckless” or
“The End Is All I Can See” – these two are absolute blasts with a great
potential. Really, the whole album is fantastic and definitely deserves the
praise it’s getting.
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